Ohio’s long-planned passenger rail corridor is about to get a $400 million federal boost.

President Obama is going to Florida on Thursday to reveal how his administration will divvy up $8 billion in high-speed rail funding, but the good news will whistle all the way up to the Buckeye State, say Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Rep Mary Jo Kilroy, D-Columbus.

Ohio’s plan for passenger rail service linking Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Dayton is going to get a significant share of that funding, said Brown, though he said he didn’t know precisely how much.

But a separate, well-placed federal source told The Dispatch this afternoon that the figure will be $400 million.

“This is some of the best news we have had in a long time,” Brown said. “If I put my ear down to the rail I think I hear a train coming.”

Ohio officials are banking on federal stimulus money for most or all of the estimated $517.6 million they say they need to improve existing freight rail to passenger standards and to buy trains.